SC - SC-Cookbooks

[Stephen Bloch]

> Many of the gentles
> whom I have introduced to period cooking seem more daunted by the vernacular
> of the recipes than the redacting and preparing of them. Would there be any
> interest in having some of the cookbooks in His Grace's collection
> "translated" into modern easy English?

It's hard for me to believe that this is necessary, if people take a
well-chosen learning path.  Start with the sources like _Pleyn Delit_
that give modern-English translations and redactions; people can follow
the redactions verbatim at first, then gradually start working directly
from the modern-English translations, incidentally learning some
vocabulary.  Then move to 16th-century English recipes, which shouldn't
be hard to read, especially with the vocabulary gained from the
secondary sources.  Once they're comfortable with that language, give
them some 15th- century English recipes, then 14th-century.  The key
for any of the earlier forms of English is to read them aloud,
phonetically, and listen to what you just said.

And, of course, many of the original sources aren't in English anyway,
so most people will be reading modern English translations of
_Menagier_, or Platina, or _Gute Spise_, or ....

					mar-Joshua ibn-Eleazar ha-Shalib
                                                 Stephen Bloch
                                           sbloch at panther.adelphi.edu
					 http://www.adelphi.edu/~sbloch/
                                        Math/CS Dept, Adelphi University